Il Capriolo

After 50 years of business in Prato, Il Capriolo is back to its original management, renewing the values of its tradition.

From April 2011, we welcome you to rediscover our kitchen, our wine selection, the renovated dining rooms, the wine bar and cafe.

Historiographical notes- Immediately after the war, the workers of the Panerai Grignano brick kiln and Prato carters, who were passing through the area at around noon, loved to stop in at eat in trattoria that was connected to a kind of grocery shop, located where Via Roma widens to form Piazza delle Carra, Grignano’s main square.

There Ms. Ofelia served tasty Tuscan dishes, washed down with local wine, while her husband Amerigo churned out bread and schiacciata in the small wood-fired oven behind the shop.

The increasing customer influx demanded more space and the surrounding fields made it possible to create this space. And so, the new Grignano shop, called Il Pastacaldi (named after a relative who had nothing to do with it) was born.

Next to the grocery store, there remained a bit of land, which is now in middle of the town. It was here that they decided to build a restaurant attached to the house-shop.

Thus, in 1961 the first major restaurant in Prato was opened, “il Capriolo”, serving Tuscan specialties.

The restaurant was family-owned and the children of Ophelia, Liana and Mario Puggelli looked after the business with their spouses Luigi Mannori and Amelia Pratesi.

It was 10 years of busy work: all the industries brought customers, representatives, their wives and lovers (those who had them) to il Capriolo. Communions and weddings, silver and gold wedding anniversaries, birthdays and special occasions were celebrated at il Capriolo. There wasn’t an actor, singer or athlete in that decade who travelled through the Florence-Prato-Pistoia plains and didn’t stop for a meal or a mundane outing at il Capriolo.

Among the many distinguished clients, photographs in the restaurant immortalize the likes of Gianni Morandi, Rita Pavone, Gigliola Cinquetti,
Sergio Enrigo, Bobby Solo, Caterina Caselli, Franco Bitossi, Gino Bartali,
Angelo Moratti, Fabrizio Ferretti, Vittorio Adorni and other sport, entertainment and politics personalities.

In those years of the booming industry, Prato worked 24 hours a day …
and the restaurant did the same.

After ten years of tireless work, in 1971, the management was sold and
the premises rented. Since then, it has had five different managers,
working uninterruptedly until 2010, when the place was closed for
renovations.

After a year of work, il Capriolo was reopened in April 14, 2011, by a new family management – the great-grandchildren of Ms Ofelia, exactly 50 years after its first opening. The new management intends to reach the high quality standards of the original restaurant, renewing the tradition inherited through generations of experience in the restaurant business, and placing it all in an elegant, dynamic and completely renovated location.